Chapter 8 - The Night the Whole Town Needed the Shop
The first major snowstorm of the next winter arrived on December 11.
Forecast: eight inches.
Reality: fourteen, followed by freezing rain.
By 4:30 in the afternoon, Briar Glen looked like somebody had erased the roads.
Schools dismissed early.
Businesses closed.
The county issued a travel advisory.
At Brennan Fleet Service, we stayed open.
We always stayed open during storms because the vehicles that mattered most came to us when weather was worst.
Plows.
Ambulance support vans.
Utility trucks.
Food delivery rigs.
School buses trying to get children home.
At 5:12 p.m., Erin called.
"We have a problem."
I heard wind behind her voice.
"Where are you?"
"North Ridge Road. Bus 214 lost power. Twenty-one students on board. Driver says the engine died and will not restart."
I was already reaching for my coat.
"Any injuries?"
"No. Heat is still working off residual coolant, but not for long. Another bus is trying to reach them from the south. Road department says a tree is down."
"I am taking Mobile Two."
"Caleb, the road is bad."
"That is why Mobile Two has chains."
Sam heard me and grabbed his jacket.
"I am coming."
"No. Stay here. The county plows are stacked up already."
He opened his mouth.
"That was not a request."
He swore at me, which was his preferred form of affection.
Eli, now a full-time first-year technician after graduating, loaded portable heaters and a jump pack into the mobile unit.
"Call every fifteen minutes," Sam ordered.
"Yes, Mom."
"I will fire you."
"I own the company."
"Technicality."
The drive took forty minutes instead of twelve.
Snow blew sideways across the headlights.
Two cars sat abandoned near a ditch.
A county plow had partially cleared North Ridge but could not get past the fallen tree.
The bus was on the other side.
Erin stood beside a sheriff's deputy near the tree line wearing a reflective vest over her coat.
"What are you doing here?" I asked as I climbed out.
"My students are on that bus."
"They are everybody's students."
"Tonight they are mine."
There was no arguing with that.
A utility crew was cutting the tree, but it would take time.
I carried the jump pack and diagnostic bag the last quarter mile on foot with the deputy.
Inside the bus, twenty-one teenagers were trying very hard to pretend they were not scared.
The driver, Mrs. Coleman, looked relieved enough to hug me.
"It just died. No warning."
I checked the electrical system.
Battery voltage was low.
Charging system dead.
The alternator belt had shredded after an idler pulley seized.
Normally, easy.
In a storm, on a roadside, with temperature dropping, not easy.
The replacement bus was still blocked.
I called Sam.
"I need an idler and belt for a Cummins B6.7, district bus configuration."
"Already pulling parts."
"How?"
"You think I have worked with you eleven years and cannot predict what you will ask?"
The utility crew cleared a narrow path thirty minutes later. Erin drove Mobile Two through while the deputy guided her around the remaining branches.
She climbed out holding the parts box over her head.
"Delivery."
"You drove my truck?"
"Your keys were in it."
"That is not permission."
"Sue me."
We changed the pulley and belt together under portable work lights while snow hit the backs of our necks.
Erin handed me tools.
Her gloves were too big.
Her hair had come loose.
At one point, she looked at me and started laughing.
"What?"
"You have ice in your eyebrows."
"Very attractive."
"Debatable."
The engine started at 7:03 p.m.
The kids cheered.
I had been cheered for exactly three mechanical repairs in my life.
All three involved school buses.
We escorted the bus back to the main road where another driver took over.
By the time Erin and I returned to the shop, it was nearly eight.
The waiting area was full.
Not customers.
People.
Diane was serving coffee from a catering urn.
Gordon was handing out sandwiches.
Natalie stood behind the service counter answering phones.
I stopped in the doorway.
"What is happening?"
Natalie looked up.
"Erin called my company because the district needed food for stranded drivers. I called Mom. Mom called Dad. Dad called the country club caterer, which is apparently the first useful thing that membership has done in twenty years."
Gordon pointed at her.
"That joke was unnecessary."
"It was accurate."
Erin walked in behind me and took in the scene.
"I leave for forty minutes and you people organize civilization."
Diane handed her coffee.
"You must be freezing."
Erin looked at me over the cup.
There was a question in her eyes.
Not jealousy.
Not discomfort.
Just surprise at finding my former wife and her parents inside my shop during a storm.
I shrugged.
"Briar Glen is weird."
She smiled.
"Apparently."
We worked until 2:00 a.m.
Nobody discussed Christmas from the year before.
Nobody discussed divorce.
Nobody discussed Blake.
There were trucks to repair and people to feed.
At midnight, I saw Natalie and Erin standing together near the vending machines.
My stomach tightened on instinct.
Then Natalie said something.
Erin laughed.
They spoke for a few minutes.
Natalie left soon after.
I did not ask what they discussed until Erin and I were driving to my house.
"So," I said.
"So?"
"You and Natalie."
"She introduced herself."
"I assumed."
"She told me I should know you pretend not to like Christmas music but you know every word to 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.'"
I groaned.
"Betrayal continues."
Erin looked out the windshield.
"Then she said something else."
I waited.
"She said, 'He will take care of everyone in the room before he remembers himself. Do not let him disappear inside that.'"
I said nothing.
The road ahead shone beneath the plow lights.
"That sounds like her," I said finally.
"She knows you well."
"She did."
Erin turned toward me.
"No. She still does. That does not threaten me."
I glanced at her.
"Why not?"
"Because knowing someone and being right for them are different things."
That sentence settled somewhere deep.
At my house, the power was out.
We lit the fireplace and ate leftover sandwiches on the floor.
Erin took off her boots and stretched her feet toward the heat.
"One year ago," I said, "I thought my life was ending."
"Was it?"
"A version of it."
She rested her head against my shoulder.
"Good thing versions can be revised."
I looked at the fire.
Then at her.
"I love you."
The words came out before I could rehearse them.
Erin went very still.
I immediately became a thirty-five-year-old man who could rebuild a diesel engine but had no idea what to do with his hands.
"You do not have to -"
She kissed me.
Then she pulled back.
"I love you too."
May you like
Outside, the storm kept hitting the windows.
Inside, for the first time in a long time, I was not waiting for something to break.
